A few observations about this week: 1) frustration at the day job leads to some really nice and productive workouts, 2) the right training groups make a huge amount of difference in early morning motivation, 3) I have an awesome girlfriend, as evidenced by my complaining about being sick of using Clif Shots for food during long runs and her response – creating a granola/peanut butter/craisin/chocolate ball to test out, 4) when you are able to make observations 1 through 3, life is really not bad.

Hope everyone had a good week. I apologize about the sporadic nature of the posting (see observation 1). The weather in the West looks like it will be gorgeous for getting outside. So here is to hoping that you do and wishing you safe and adventure filled weekend.

Peanut butter/granola/craisin/chocolate balls. I’m worried how they will hold up, but I’m pretty excited to test them out (the recipe was inspired by a recipe from two peas & their pod)

The Feed

Training tips galore:Yesterday when I was browsing through the usual line up of blogs there seemed to be an abundance of training related posts, spread over all sorts of different training approaches. I think as a whole the posts below are great reads just to pick up some ideas and tips for how you go about getting your miles in, whether it be hiking, riding, running or one of those weird sit down bike things.

Workout ideas: Bicycling.com has a post up that lays out an interval based workout program that is meant to trim body fat. Which means that the workouts (laid out over five weeks) are probably pretty f’ing hard. I’m not insinuating that you need to trim 15 pounds, but beach season IS just around the corner.

For the runners, head over to Jake and Andrea’s great blog Wasatch and Beyond and read up on what Jake calls his “Double Dipping” workouts. The “Double Dips” are a combination of tempo miles in the morning and track intervals in the late afternoon. Unlike Jake, I would not recommend combining them in to a single day. As Jake points out in the post, you need to have a significant aerobic base combined with an ability to be able to recover quickly (which comes with training). A little caveat before diving in to Jake’s post: Jake is fast. Very fast. His workouts reflect those of a person who runs sub 5:30 minute miles regularly. DO NOT get freaked out by the speed at which he does the pieces, just check out how he structures them. Like I said at the beginning, the post is here for training ideas, not to be intimidated.

Now for the taper: After terrifying yourself reading Jake’s piece, spend a few minutes at Runner’s World checking out their top tips for tapering. This is, by far, the most neglected part of my season. I rarely, if ever, come up with a comprehensive plan for tapering. The Runner’s World piece is a good guide to helping you set up your own.

Finally, don’t forget to eat: Women’s Adventure has a nice piece up featuring ultra running nutrition tips, which I think are fairly applicable across disciplines and distance. The advice is anecdotal in nature, but there are some good little tidbits such as “In longer races, I add burritos, avocados, and protein drinks.” Who doesn’t love a burrito during a run? Perfect.

It pays to get friendly with the bears: A California man is claiming that he was attacked by a mountain lion while he was watching a mother bear and her cubs. The lion jumped on the man’s back and was then driven off by the mother bear. The man is claiming that he has interacted with that same group of bears before and they are friendly with him. I’m a bit skeptical about this one. The piece makes it sound like the mother bear came to the man’s rescue. In all reality she was probably protecting her cubs and getting rid of the lion while it was focused on something else. You can check the post out via Outside.com.

An alternative burger: We have been eating a lot of garbanzo bean burgers courtesy of 101 Cookbooks. The bean burgers are great sources of protein and are incredibly fast and easy to make. Which means we make a lot of them. Which means we have become sick of them. I was stoked to find a new alternative via the NY Times: Quinoa and Vegetable Burgers (the recipe for the garbanzo bean burgers is here).

The things we learn on Saturdays: Because it is finally the weekend, and the weekend means long runs or rides and ruminations on the same (via Red Kit Prayer).

A touch of honesty: people on fixies really really bug the sh*t out of me. When I lived in Portland my daily commute downtown was a daily gladiatorial contest in which the fixie riders acted more like kamikazes than people trying to get to work. As a result, I have developed a deep rage associated with fans of the fixie. BUT, this video is kind of cool. And exactly the kind of thing a fixie rider would think of when contemplating a self made video.

One Response to “TWW Daily Feed for March 30th, 2012: training tips, bear attacks and the poetic turmoil of Saturdays”

Thanks for posting the link, Jeff. I included the paces to show that I’m not out hammering myself in the ground during the 2nd track workout – most decent high school runners could run those track sessions. The point is to work on leg speed and train the neuromuscular system – learn to run faster (with good form) while a little bit fatigued.

One thing I should have added to my blog is that you should get pretty comfortable with simply running twice a day at an easy pace a few times per week before trying to run faster twice in the same day.